Monday, April 28, 2014

IPL 2014 In a match crippled by poor batting, Royal Challengers Bangalore limped to just 124 and Kings XI Punjab were in danger of flaw to chase that all right total, before they hung on to win by 5 wickets and leave UAE with their 5th win in as many matches.

Chris Gayle was forced to sit out the first 4 marches due to injury and in the urge to make up for lost time, hammered 20 off the opening over by Maxwell, though not in the most believable manner. But when attempting to dish out the same treatment to Sandeep Sharma the following over, he played one impulsive stroke too many and that started a slide Royal Challengers never recovered from.

Sharma Sandeep, the right-arm seamer, gets prodigious in swing and that helped in took Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli, though he was lucky to get the latter. The swing took the ball past leg stump when the ball struck Virat Kohli pads but Billy Bowden was persuaded it was hitting the stumps.

He pulled a short ball and found David Miller at deep midwicket with pin-point precision. It was a dubious shot, given the circumstances. Yuvraj Singh was the last recognized batsman and Royal Challengers were 3 short of 100 with more than 5 overs to play. With a paltry 124 to defend, Royal Challengers needed fast wickets. Two brilliant catches at well leg by Mitchell Starc gave them hope.

David Miller and Virender Sehwag kept Kings XI on track with a stand partnership of 45. However, a double-strike by the leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal added a twist. Miller edged a googly, Sehwag was adjudged caught behind as well but replays showed he hadn't nicked it. But finally Kings XI Punjab won by five wickets Bailey 16 and R Dhawan 23 finally stand in the ground.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

IPL 2014 7th Season The people laughing now will be Kings XI Punjab team owners who will view the million dollars they sunk on Glenn Maxwell as a bargain given the 3 match impressive wins he has arrange at the start of the season. It was the good openers Cheteshwar Pujara (35) and Virender Sehwag (30) had provided a fast start from which he could build. He had plenty of luck as well - besides the Warner reprieve, he was caught off a no-ball, and a skier was in the air for ages but evaded everybody when it landed at midwicket.

If the previous 2 victories had been thrilling innings in which Kings XI hunted down very big scores, this was an unmemorable one-sided affair after Glenn Maxwell put on a show again to lead the side to 193. Instead, the chance went down and Glenn Maxwell went on to pillage 95 off 43, including 9 sixes.

Previous season, Glenn Maxwell was the punch line to tons of millionaire jokes. He warmed the Mumbai Indians bench for much of the campaign, and was a secondary figure in the 3 matches he did play. This time, the season is only a week old, and he is not just played 3 matches, he is been the Man of the Match in each.

Sunrisers Hyderabad have a dangerous top order - any of Shikhar Dhawan, Warner or Finch can single-handedly transform a match - but they also have a hazardously unbalanced batting line-up. After the big three, the batting is frighteningly thin KL Rahul is still finding his way at this level, Venugopal Rao is not someone teams are going to worry about too much, Irfan Pathan is a spot too high at No. six and Darren Sammy is great at providing the finishing touches but less proficient at building the base.

Hyderabad Sunrisers also didn't bring on their main weapon, Dale Steyn, when Maxwell was in the midst of his carnage. Till he was 72 off 29, Maxwell faced neither Steyn nor Bhuvneshwar Kumar both of whom mutual to limit the damage at the end of the innings.Especially after L Balaji removed David Warner and Aaron Finch in the 5th over.

Monday, April 21, 2014

IPL -2014 Chennai Super Kings crushed Delhi Daredevils by 93 runs in a methodically one-sided game in Abu Dhabi. Chennai Super Kings started progressively after choosing to bat, but Raina busy fifty in the middle and a late surge catapult them to 177 runs.

Their fast tied Delhi Daredevils down with accurate swing bowling, and thrilling catching from Raina and FAF du Plessis made it harder. The middle order sank without a fight, and by the halfway stage of the chase, the match was as excellent as over. By the 16th over, Super Kings had wrapped up their biggest win in 93 runs.

Suresh Raina was also to start Delhi Daredevils downfall. Ishwar Pandey and Ben Hilfenhaus were probing with their out swingers, and when Mayank Agarwal tried to break free with an attempt chip over cover, Suresh Raina made ground to snap up the mishit.

Delhi Daredevils were 17 for 3 in the 5th over, and were going nowhere from there. All that Chennai Super Kings tried worked even as Dinesh Karthik hung around in vain. Dwayne Smith trotted in for his first ball in the 9th over and caught JP Duminy plumb in front. Hilfenhaus had Ross Taylor caught behind as just reward for his away swing.

At 50 for 5 in the 10th over and Coulter-Nile unavailable, Daredevils needed a wonder from the last batting pair of Karthik and Jimmy Neesham? Instead, R Ashwin hit his Tamil Nadu team-mate's middle stump with his 1st ball in the 13th over, and along with Ravindra Jadeja, ran through whatever remained of the Daredevils line-up.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

IPL 2014 7th Season After they made mockery of a 200-plus chase in their 1st match on Chennai Super Kings, Kings XI Punjab captain George Bailey said this was not going to happen all day, and that his bowlers needed to turn up. The bowlers failed to turn up again, but Glenn Maxwell and David Miller made light of another very big chase. Between them Maxwell and Miller smashed 140 off 64 balls, smocked 12 sixes and reverse-hit and caressed 8 fours.

Pravin tambe and Rajat Bhatia turned pulled things back with their non-turning logrollers, and not much pace to work with. The asking rate shot past 12, and Rajat Bhatia began the 11th over with fielders deep on the leg side, and three men behind and around point in the circle. This is when Maxwell in the Mirror made his look.

The next over from Dhawal Kulkarni had an also strong leg-side field, and Maxwell produced his touch play again. One upper-cut, one flick, and two gentle pushes past the man at cover brought him 16 runs. And when Maxwell manhandles Bhatia for 2 sixes in the next over, time had come for Royals to go back to the big guns.

They had small clue they were about to jump from the frying pan into the fire, the fire of Miller 51 off 19. Miller came in with 66 required off 36, which became 60 off 30 with a canny Binny over, and 3 dots from Tambe compounded it even further, but now Miller began to pick his deliveries to hit.

Even though Pravin Tambe bowled the next ball short, David Miller smashed him over long-off for six. Pujara sort of took care of the next over with a 4 and 3, and now Kings XI needed 37 from the last 3 overs.

J.P. Duminy played a thrilling match to take the Delhi Daredevils to a 4-wicket won over the Kolkata Knight Riders in an Indian Premier League 7th season at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium here Saturday.

Chasing a challenging target of 167, the South African played a strutting knock of 52 not out to take the Daredevils home with a 6 - with 3 balls to spare.

Earlier, the Knight Riders recovered from an early on slump to put up a fighting total of 166/5.

However, Manish Pandey (48) and Robin Uthappa (55) took control of the ship and steered it through the middle overs. The duo provided stability to the innings by a 64-run third-wicket partnership to take the team out of trouble.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Rajasthan Royals Indian players came to the fore as Shane Watson team managed to get over the line against Hyderabad Sunrisers in the 4th match of the IPL 7th Season of at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Friday evening.

Rajasthan bowlers led by Dhawal Kulkarni, Rajat Bhatia and Pravin Tambe limited the top-heavy Hyderabad batting line-up to 133 for 6 before a 77-run partnership for the 4th wicket between Ajinkya Rahane and Stuart Binny took their team over the line with only 3 deliveries left in the match.

Ajinkya Rahane and Stuart Binny 77-run partnership in 9.4 overs for the 4th wicket Rahane hit six boundaries in his 53-ball 59, before Amit Mishra had him caught by Aaron Finch at long-off, with Rajasthan 108 for 4 in 16 overs. Stuart Binny remained unbeaten on 48 from 32 deliveries, which included four boundaries and a six, as his counter-attacking knock proved to be the perfect foil to Rahane’s innings.

Shikhar Dhawan and David Warner added 75 runs for the 2nd wicket, but it took the pair 64 balls to do so. Though Shikhar Dhawan and David Warner found boundaries hard to come by, they rotated the strike well and were fast between the wickets, but the required impetus to spur Hyderabad’s innings failed to come in the face of tight bowling by Rajasthan Royals bowlers.

IPL 2014 7th Season 3rd Match Yesterday Maxwell justified his heavy price-tag by knocking the stuffing out of IPL tow time title winner Chennai Super Kings, as new-style and new players –new look for all Kings XI Punjab made a winning start to this year competition.

So far as early games in protracted leagues go, this one was amazingly absorbing and not all had to do with the Australian Player Maxwell 43-ball 95, which made light work of the very big 205-run target Chennai had set his team.

Chennai had earlier shrugged off a bog of allegation and a fresh opening pair to reach an imposing 204-4 after MS Dhoni elected to bat. This time Chennai team new players Smith (66, 43b) and Brendon McCollum (67, 45b) very good start of the game. McCollum needed no further invitations to wreak havoc and crossed 5,000 runs in all T20 cricket.

The showpiece of their chase was a 115-run partnership between Glenn Maxwell (95 for 43 balls and David Miller (54 for 37balls) that came at almost 11 runs-per over. The alliance killed Chennai Super Kings in the center and included a frightening 13th over by rookie left-arm spinner Pawan Negi that was taken for 22 runs.

Chasing a monstrosity against a side famous for its spin trickery, Kings XI Punjab tem chances seemed to reside exclusively in the hands of Virender Sehwag and Glenn Maxwell, who they had purchased for six times his base price of Rs.1 Croce. But a bespectacled Sehwag was bowled for 19 after a flurry of carefree strokes.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

IPL 2014 7th Season yester day match Yuvraj Singh was back to his best in his first match for Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The Yuvraj and Virat Kohli partnership didn't have a happy ending in the World T20 final, but less than 2 weeks after that night in Mirpur, Swapping Bangalore Royal Challengers the pair made easy work of Delhi 145, helping Bangalore won by eight-wicket.

The bedrock of the chase was Kohli, who benefited from two let-offs in his 20s to remain unbeaten on 49. The pair added 84 in just 7.5 overs, nullifying the unbeaten 110-run association between Delhi's JP Duminy and Ross Taylor. Duminy and Taylor helped Delhi recover from a wobbly 35 for 4, but their efforts weren't enough to stretch Bangalore at any stage of the chase.

Parthiv Patel gave the innings a push with a positive 35. He charged down the track to the seamers, forcing the ball down the ground and pulling a six, off the left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem, out of the ground.

Parthiv Patel gave the innings a push with a positive 35. He charged down the track to the seamers, forcing the ball down the ground and pulling a six, off the left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem, out of the ground.

Yuvraj didn't look secure initially, taking his eyes off a short ball and hooking a boundary to fine leg. He found his groove with a flat six over long-on off the leg spinner Rahul Sharma and some wayward bowling by Nadeem gave Yuvraj the chance to pepper the leg side boundaries with his favorite slogs.

Jimmy Neesham fluff the simple of catches at short well leg when Kohli was on 23, and when the batsman had added one more, he was put down by Mayank Agarwal at deep cover. It was clearly Bangalore night as Yuvraj and Kohli closed out the chase with more blows over the boundary. Yuvraj managed his 1st IPL fifty in 20 innings and the smile was back on his face.

Delhi found it tough on a two-paced Sharjah pitch, struggling to get the run rate above five in the first ten overs. The loss of early wickets slowed them down. Agarwal fell top-edging a pull to square leg as the frustration to score began to build and Delhi were pegged back further when Dinesh Karthik and Manoj Tiwary fell for 0 and 1 respectively.

The strategic timeout didn't change Delhi's fortunes as M Vijay, who had made a start with 18, was bamboozled by the leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal. At 35 for 4 in the 8th over, Delhi desperately needed a big partnership Ross Taylor and JP Duminy at a good clip to compensate for the sluggish scoring in the first half.

His momentum in the latter half was provided by Duminy, who unlike Taylor found the middle of the bat regularly. He lofted Yuvraj Singh for a six to the sight screen before scooping Dinda to the same area. Dinda was unsuccessful at the death yet again as he leaked 51 off his 4 overs. Delhi took 30 off the last 2 overs and 63 off the last 5 but in the end, 145 wasn't enough.

The 7th season of Pepsi Indian Premier League (IPL) was flagged off in Abu Dhabi with an opening event rich in cricketing pedigree as well as a generous dose of fun and frolic.

Welcome by H.E. Sheikh Nahayan Mubarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Culture, and Youth & Community Development, in which he spoke of the UAE is strength of mind as a nation to move forward in the sporting field.

Then it was the time for some Bollywood style masti as the beautiful Indian actress, Deepika Padukone sizzled the stage with a lively number that mesmerized the audience.

Jacques Kallis proved his all-round worth again a few months after his international retirement, while the bowling strength of Kolkata Knight Riders led by Morne Morkel and Narine, helped Gambhir team thump caring champions Mumbai Indians by 41 runs in the season opener of IPL-7 at Abu.

Pandey hit six boundaries and two sixes in his 53-ball 64, and added 131 runs in 15.2 overs Kallis looked rusty for a large part of his 46-ball 72 as he struggled to rotate the strike and even unsuccessfully tried to play unorthodox shots that he was not known for during his legendary career Kallis’ half-century off 37 balls with Manish Pandey getting into the act as well.

Mumbai Indians never got going in their run chase, after Kallis and Manish Pandey’s half-centuries had set the foundation for Kolkata’s 163 for 5, in the face of some disciplined new ball bowling by Morkel.

Tare hit Sunil Narine’s (4-20) second ball for a six, but the West Indies spinner struck with his fourth delivery in IPL-7 when he knocked back Hussey’s (3 from 13 deliveries) middle stump. Shakib Al Hasan then caught Tare (24) off his own bowling as Mumbai slipped to 40 for 2 in the 8th over, and their tough task was made more difficult by Kallis and Shakib Al Hassan, who did an outstanding job of choking the runs in the middle overs, as the asking rate kept climbing.

Ambati Rayudu -48 from 40 balls had his struggle in the middle and any remote hope that Mumbai had of chasing down the target evaporate when Robin Uthappa stumped him off Narine’s bowling in the 17th over. Narine returned to clean bowl Corey Anderson and Harbhajan Singh in the 19th over as his guile proved too much for the Mumbai batsmen. Finally Kolkata Knight Riders Beat Mumbai Indians by 41 runs.